The Best Credit Cards to Use With American Express Bluebird

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[Disclosure: Emily & I get a referral for all the credit cards in this post except for the Delta Platinum (better offer than my referral link), Chase United Explorer, Chase United Club, Chase British Airways, Fidelity American Express, & Capital One Venture cards.]

There are many different debit and credit cards which you can use with American Express Bluebird, so let’s take a look at a few different options. We’ll look at credit cards today and debit cards tomorrow.

Using different cards will help reduce the potential of attracting attention with Chase since you are spreading your purchases among different cards.

You can get a very nice return by using the Citi Hilton Reserve card (amongst others) because you earn a free weekend night after spending $10,000 within 1 calendar year AND will get 30,000 Hilton points since each $1 spent earns 3 Hilton points!

American Express Bluebird lets everyone inch towards being a Big Spender because you finally have the ability to fund Bluebird with a credit or debit card to pay your rent, mortgage and other loans with Bluebird.

Table Summary

Here’s a summary of the benefits, annual & monthly spending, and Vanilla reload fees. The return on the cash back and Citi Thank You cards is not attractive to me, but I included it for comparison. I also didn’t include the points earned on the Vanilla Reload fee – just for the base spending.

Don’t forget to include the value of your time in making trips to Office Depot.

You then load your Bluebird card with the $500 Vanilla reload card online and use your Bluebird for transactions for which you don’t usually earn miles or points – such as paying mortgages (using the Bluebird Bill Pay), withdrawing from ATMs, paying other persons, etc.

If you currently have an American Express Serve account, you have to cancel your account before applying for a Bluebird.

Credit Cards

1. Credit Card Sign Up Bonuses. One of the best uses of American Express Bluebird is to buy Vanilla Reload cards at an Office Depot with your credit card.

The amount which you spend at Office Depot will count towards the minimum spending requirement on your credit card.

You then load your American Express Bluebird with the Vanilla Reload card and use your Bluebird for transactions for which you don’t usually earn miles and points – rent, mortgages, ATM withdrawals, paying bills by checks, etc.

You earn 1 free weekend night & 30,000 Hilton points after spending $10,000 within 1 card membership year on the Citi Hilton Reserve.A card membership year is a 12 month period starting from when you are approved for the card and ending 12 months later – and then another 12 month card membership year begins.

The United Club card offers 1.5 miles per $1 spent with no cap on the amount of miles you can earn. Let’s say you spend $20,000 on it annually to buy Vanilla Reload cards.

This means that you earn 30,000 United miles (20,000 miles X 1.5 miles per $1 spent).

The Math:

$20,000 annual spending is ~$1,666 per month. This requires 40 Vanilla reload packs of $500. Each reload pack has a fee of $3.95. So your cost for spending $20,000 is $158 (40 Vanilla Reload packs X $3.95) which earns you 30,000 United miles.

However, the United Club card has a $395 annual fee, but does get you free access to United Clubs, 2 free bags, waived late ticketing fees, and Premier Access.

The Travel Together Ticket is valid for two years from when you earn it, but can be used only ONCE. You can earn only one British Airways Travel Together pass per calendar year, and they are valid only on British Airways flights.

This means that if you live in Omaha, but your British Airways flight leaves from Chicago, you can’t use the Travel Together ticket to get from Omaha to Chicago because British Airways doesn’t fly from Omaha to Chicago.

Expect to pay ~$400 in fuel surcharges and taxes per long-haul segment on award bookings, but that’s still cheaper than paying for a business or first class ticket. The companion pass is NOT worth it if you will be redeeming in coach because of the high fuel charges.

The Math:

$30,000 annual spending is ~$2,500 per month. This requires 60 Vanilla reload packs of $500. Each reload pack has a fee of $3.95.

The Citi Thank Your Premier offers2 Thank You points per $1 spent for the 1st 24 months. Each Citi Thank You point can be redeemed for 1.33 cents in air fare through the Citi Thank You portal, so you’re earning 2.66 cents towards air travel per $1 spent.

Let’s say you spend $20,000 annually to buy Vanilla Reload cards. This means that you earn $400 in cash back ($20,000 miles X 2% cash back).

The Math:

$20,000 annual spending is ~$1,666 per month. This requires 40 Vanilla reload packs of $500. Each reload pack has a fee of $3.95. So your cost for spending $20,000 is $158 (40 Vanilla Reload packs X $3.95) which earns you $400 cash back.

So your net return is $242 ($400 cash back – $158 cost), which may not be worth the many trips to Office Depot.

Bottom Line

There are lots of different cards to use to buy Vanilla Reload packs and they prevent large amounts of spending on just 1 card which could arouse suspicion.

I particularly like earning a free night and 30,000 Hilton points after spending $10,000 annually on the Citi Hilton Reserve, but use other cards depending on your goals and your needs.

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120 responses to “The Best Credit Cards to Use With American Express Bluebird”

Found a stack of new and wrapped Vanilla Reloads on top of the prepaid stand at my local CVS. I didn’t have a bluebird account, so kind of hesitated to buy one. I went back to my “truck” and logged on to my local Starbuck’s wifi which is located at approximately every two blocks in NYC. opened up the account with bluebird and went back to CVS and purchased one reload with $100.00 to see if it would work with my SPG AMEX card, the self serve pay stand asked for the last 4 of my SPG card and prompted for approval from the staff. The staff guarding the pay stands, did not hesitate to approve it and on i went.
1. There was no problem purchasing the vanilla reload with the credit card.
possibly due to the amount purchased. Approval was easy also possibly do to the amount of money purchased.

The stack came with 10 vanilla reloads, so there are 9 left on the stand. I was tempted to take some more but i might have looked suspicious walking in back and buying more at a higher amount.
This is the first encounter with vanilla reloads since reading up on it a month a go. I have been occasionally looking for these for that long and its today that finally came up.
I wonder if people are just taking these home and stashing it once they find it?
Till next time, i wonder if these will last.

Went to my CVS in Vegas to buy Vanilla card using CC. They won’t accept CC anymore.
My friend in Newark CA has the same problem. We had no problem 2 weeks ago. Is CVS changing the policy on Vanilla Card purchase using CC.
Has anyone purchased VC using CC the last few days?

What amount of spending is “too much” spending? I was just approved for both a personal and business Chase SWA card. Any idea how much I can use Bluebird and Vanilla Reloads before some sort of red flag goes off?

Okay I am confused – I get a bluebird account – which is pretty much a checking account. What I want to do is buy this vanilla cc’s for up to 500 per card spread out (I have two AA cards, USair mc and a United visa)..so if I am understanding – I can – buy these VC cards and use that money to deposit in my bluebird account – then turn around and use that bluebird checking to pay my credit card bills?

for example I buy a 500 with the USAir MC, for 3,95 fee – deposit that 500 in bluebird and use bluebird to pay my USAir bill?

Can’t you just buy 2 x $500 vanilla reloads using Rewards CC, deposit to Bluebird. Then pay back the $1000 + fee and do this up to the $5000 bluebird limit? That will be 5000 miles a month or 60K a year?

I have the Amex SPG and Gold Premiere. Why would you use a non-bonus card like the Amex Premiere Gold at Office Depot or CVS. At .52 cents per point, isn’t that a lot of work? or even the SPG card you really need to spend $30,000 to achieve Gold Status with SPG. But at 20,000 for 25,000 airline conversion you’re still earning closer to 1% after subtracting out the fees and time consumption. Where is the math not adding up?

Also, just curious, isn’t a bit suspicious to Amex if you are charging vanilla reloads and putting them on Bluebird?

I’m completing min spend citi executive aa – vanilla w pin – bluebird -pay bill. I ‘ve cut a deal with a contractor to put a fence for 5k on cash only no check. Any thoughts on how i can use the credit card? Bluebird limit is only 500 per day?

I’m new to this “game”, so bear with me a little… Went to Family Dollar to buy VR with CC and clerk had no problem approving CC for purchase., but then asked me for my card…? I don’t have a VR card, is that what he meant? Or should I have handed him my Bluebird card (which I ordered online but have not transferred and funds to just yet)?
Thanks for any insight. I’m struggling a bit with this first step, transferring funds to the Bluebird card, because CVS and Walgreens do not accept CC to purchase VR in may area…

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